Justin
Strnad.
Justin
Strnad.
Wake Forest· 6'3"· 238 lb· 4.74s 40
"Strnad is the fifth-round linebacker who survives on special teams long enough for the defense to finally need his range, and then he is ready."Pre-draft read
A rangy off-ball linebacker who plays sideline to sideline, Strnad is a chase-and-tackle defender first. At 6-foot-3 and 238 pounds he covers ground in a hurry, runs the alley cleanly, and closes on the ball carrier with long strides rather than short choppy steps, which is why his tackle numbers spiked the moment he became a full-time starter.
The second trait is coverage feel. He has hands, four college interceptions and 10 pass breakups, and enough length to take away throwing lanes over the middle. Against the run he is more of a runner than a thumper: he prefers to flow and avoid rather than take on and shed. The signature is speed to the football in space.
Nickel-based defense that plays its second linebacker in zone coverage and keeps him protected behind big interior linemen
Year 1 special-teams core and dime coverage linebacker; ceiling is a two-down-plus-nickel starter with mid-single-digit sack production.
A two-gap front that leaves its linebackers exposed to climbing guards and asks them to stack and shed in short-yardage every week.
Keep him clean and the range shows up; ask him to take on pullers in the hole and the frame gets moved.
Wake Forest LB Justin Strnad Top Plays 2018
The 105-tackle breakout season, showing the range in the alley and the coverage work over the middle.
Justin Strnad 2019 Season Highlights | Wake Forest LB
The injury-shortened senior year, seven games at the best per-game rate of his career.
2020 NFL Draft Highlights | LB Justin Strnad
Denver own pre-draft cutup of the traits it bought at pick 178.
Strnad is a three-year build who never got a clean fourth act. After a quiet freshman season, he grew into a 51-tackle sophomore with 4.5 sacks and three interceptions, then led Wake Forest with 105 tackles, 1.5 sacks and five pass breakups as a redshirt junior to earn All-ACC honorable mention.
His final season was the problem. He was on pace for the best year of his career, 69 tackles, two sacks and an interception in seven games, before a biceps injury ended it and cost him the rest of the schedule and the pre-draft workout circuit. That left teams projecting a linebacker they liked on tape but could not test or see finish. The profile was clear enough: speed, range, coverage ability, questions about taking on guards at the point of attack.
Boards had him in the fourth-to-fifth-round range with the medical as the swing factor, and most saw a coverage linebacker and special-teams contributor. Denver took him at 178 in a defense already carrying Todd Davis, Alexander Johnson and Josey Jewell, betting on the range in sub packages rather than an immediate starting role.
- 01
Range in space
he eats up ground laterally and gets to the sideline on outside runs, which made him a genuine three-down chase defender in the ACC.
- 02
Ball skills
four interceptions and 10 pass breakups from an off-ball linebacker, unusual production that reflects real hands and awareness in zone.
- 03
Coverage length
the 6-foot-3 frame lets him cut throwing lanes over the middle and match tight ends up the seam without conceding the catch point.
- 04
Tackle volume
105 tackles as a redshirt junior and 69 in seven games as a senior, a per-game rate among the best in the conference before the injury.
- 05
Special teams profile
the size-and-speed combination makes him an obvious core four contributor, the survival trait for a Day 3 linebacker.
- 01
Taking on blocks
he prefers to run around contact rather than through it, and he gets displaced when a guard climbs clean to the second level.
- 02
Injury history
a biceps injury ended his senior year after seven games and erased both the finish and the entire pre-draft testing window.
- 03
Play strength
the frame is long rather than thick, and he lacks the anchor to hold up against downhill inside runs in short-yardage.
- 04
Instinct lag
he plays fast once he sees it but occasionally reads late, so pullers and misdirection got to him before his speed could correct.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.74sp50
- Vertical
- 29inp50
- Broad jump
- 113inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.49sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Wake Forest | 13 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Wake Forest | 13 | 51 | 4.5 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2018 | Wake Forest | 13 | 105 | 1.5 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| 2019 | Wake Forest | 7 | 69 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| Career | — | 46 | 244 | 8 | 4 | 10 | 3 |
Sports-Reference season lines including bowl games; the four seasons sum exactly to the 244-tackle, 24-TFL, 8.0-sack, four-interception, 10-pass-breakup career total. Career starts (20) come from the Broncos team bio; per-season starts are published only for 2019, so earlier years are left blank rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Space linebacker who plays a long career on tackle volume and zone coverage rather than point-of-attack strength.
Rangy coverage linebacker who waits behind starters for years and turns into a productive full-season starter.
Special-teams-only linebacker who never converts athletic traits into a defensive role and bounces between rosters.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The start of his NFL career was the injury again. Strnad missed the entire 2020 season after Denver placed him on injured reserve with a wrist injury on August 31, so he was effectively a rookie in 2021, when he played 16 games with five starts and made 36 tackles. Then came two years as a pure special-teams player: five tackles in 17 games in 2022 and five again in 2023. The turn came in Year 5. He appeared in all 17 games with eight starts in 2024, producing 73 tackles, three sacks and three pass breakups, and followed it in 2025 with 16 games, eight starts, 58 tackles, a career-high 4.5 sacks and his first interception. He is in his seventh season with Denver.
In hindsight this is a solid fifth-round outcome in an unusual shape. Strnad has 85 regular-season games, 23 starts, 187 tackles and 7.5 sacks, and he stuck with the drafting team for the entire run, something most picks in the 170s never do. The evaluation was right on both ends: the coverage range and special-teams value kept him employed through two seasons in which he barely played defense, and the play strength question is exactly why it took five years for a real defensive role to open up.